A Short Monday Jazz Ramble
As you know if you’ve read here for any bit of time, or if you’ve known me for years, I love music. I love all kinds of music, I love to listen to music, I love to talk about music, I love to research music and the fact that I have no musical talent of my own simply seems to reinforce this in me.
One of my favorite kinds of music is jazz. I’ve often thought about why it is that I’m so drawn to jazz, it is after all, for many, an aquired taste. Maybe that’s it in and of itself, the fact that many “don’t get it” might draw me to jazz, but I think (and I hope) that there’s more to it than that. So allow me the pleasure of simply waxing (I hope eloquently) for a short bit about jazz.
Since reading Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz (wonderful title), I’ve been listenening to much jazz and trying to analyze (if you can do such a thing) what it is about jazz that I’ve always connected with. Miller notes in the preface (Author’s Note) to Blue Like Jazz:
I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn’t resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.
After that I liked jazz music.
Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are you showing you the way.
I’ve thought particularly about that idea, “jazz music doesn’t resolve.” While I understand Miller’s point, the statement has never sat well with me because I don’t think it’s asking the right question. It imports the assumption that art, particularly music must “resolve.” In other words, not to accuse Miller of anything, or to try to read his thoughts, but it seems that we’ve imported the “sitcom mentality” even into our art. If it’s not wrapped up neatly at the end, somehow we feel cheated.
Jazz doesn’t necessarily “resolve,” but then again it’s not meant to, It’s about exploration, it’s one of the few musical forms that’s truly about the creative process as much as it is about the finished product. It’s the epitome of poetry. Ludwig von Beethoven is reported to have said:”Music is a higher revelation than philosophy.” Instrumental music conveys as many emotions as lyrical music, if not more.
Though they are working within certain set frameworks, the very notion of jazz carries with it the ideas of improvisation and creativity. Whereas lyrical music is often limited to its immediate subject matter, instrumental music is open to many interpretations, only hemmed in by the feel of the music. Not as much about a certain slice of life as lyrical music, jazz is nonetheless about life.
Life is about working within the frameworks that God has set, but it is also about exploration (improvisation if you will); about repeated patterns until we get them right and until they ring in our ears and the ears of our Creator and Sustainer as praise. Jazz is about exploring the exploration, it’s about the nuances of theme, variation and repetition; the melody unfolds and blooms, disappearing only to reappear again in slightly different form. The players interact, prodding one another in the exploration of the theme.
The fact that jazz doesn’t resolve is to be expected, because it’s not about the destination as much as it is about the journey. Life is the perfect accompaniment for life, which we know all too well will not find resolution in this lifetime. Am I thinking too much about music, quite possibly. Maybe it’s the head-cold medication?